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To pay so much attention to Bill Gates' retirement is
missing the point. What really matters is not Gates, nor
Microsoft, but the unethical system of restrictions that
Microsoft, like many other software companies, imposes on its
customers.

The practice of selling license exceptions became a hot topic when I co-signed Knowledge Ecology International's letter warning that Oracle's purchase of MySQL (plus the rest of Sun) might not be good for MySQL.

Many in our community are suspicious of the CodePlex Foundation. With
its board of directors dominated by Microsoft employees and
ex-employees, plus apologist Miguel de Icaza, there is plenty of
reason to be wary of the organization. But that doesn't prove its
actions will be bad.

I have said in speeches that Apple could forcibly impose software
changes in Mac OS X, just as Microsoft can with Windows. I heard this
in the Mac community, but there is no published information that
confirms it, and I now believe that I was misinformed. There is no
evidence that Apple has installed software changes without the user's
permission.